Kirkby water leak fixed by engineers on Christmas Day morning

Kevin Rogers

Workers from Severn Trent Water worked right through Christmas Day morning to stop a burst water pipe from ruining the big day for customers in Kirkby.

Severn Trent said their systems monitoring water flow picked up on a problem and a team was quickly dispatched to deal with it.

Adam Slack, technical expert, from Severn Trent Water said: “We’re a twenty-four-seven business, and even on Christmas Day we’ve got teams available to take calls from customers and teams out and about to fix any problems.

“There was a real possibility that this could spoil Christmas Day for our customers, so we acted fast.”

“This morning our systems that monitor water flow and pressure picked up a signal that told us there was a burst pipe in Kirby in Ashfield.

“We know how important it is to have water on the big day - how else can you cook the sprouts?”

He said the alert meant engineers could get on with moving water around the network of pipes and arranging the repair before customers even noticed.

He added: “Most customers had their supplies back on incredibly quickly – most won’t even have noticed.

“But a handful of customers are supplied from right next to the burst pipe. For them, we arranged a supply of bottled water, and for a nearby nursing home, we put in a temporary pipe to make sure they had enough water while the burst pipe is fixed, so no-one was without water.

“We’d really like to say sorry to anyone who was affected by this problem today – unfortunately burst pipes can happen at any time, and this is the absolute worst time to be without water.

“Our team of engineers are working through the day to fix the pipe and get everything back to normal. It’s not great being away from home on Christmas Day, but when things go wrong, we need to get to work. Our absolute priority is making sure our customers have a great supply of clean water.”

Adam added: “No matter what time of the day or night, any time of year, you can call us on 0800 783 4444 and we’ll do everything we can to help.”